Surprise and delight are the cornerstones of any great marketing strategy.

Remind your customers that you care about the relationship and you’ll create fans for life. There are tons of opportunities to do so every year: company anniversaries, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and even Valentine’s Day.

People fall asleep during TV commercials, but body language changes the instant they hear a story. If you show your prospects that you truly understand what they’re going through, they’ll be far more likely to listen.

As any Olympic athlete will tell you, visualization is a powerful tool.

Helping your prospects imagine themselves using your product or service will engage their purchasing desire without having to “sell” to them. Demo videos work for a variety of offerings, whether yours is digital or physical.

Are you looking to generate more leads for your business? The almighty lead magnet is here to help!

A lead magnet is an easily-consumable piece of information that you offer on your website to convert visitors into leads.

Also referred to as opt-in bribes or signup incentives, lead magnets demonstrate your expertise and establish trust.

As long as your lead magnet delivers a quick win (by helping your visitors easily achieve something), your visitors are totally willing to give you their precious contact info to get it.

Your lead magnet should help a specific audience with a specific problem, be delivered instantly, and be consumable within 5-10 minutes.

Lead magnets come in many forms, and are most commonly delivered as downloadable PDFs.

However, the most powerful format for a lead magnet is: video.

Videos are a lot easier for people to consume, provide faster gratification, stimulate more senses and work with more learning styles than basic text-based lead magnets do.

If your company’s lead generation isn’t matching your entrepreneurial spirit, here are 3 kinds of videos that will help you get leads.

Video Lead Magnet Examples

Please note: the following examples are only demonstrations to provide you with ideas.

“How-To” Videos

These are, quite arguably, the most useful content that people can find online. They get millions upon millions of views on YouTube every day.

Show your visitors that you’ve got a video that’ll help them solve a problem, and you’ll have a powerful lead magnet. It doesn’t have to be a big expensive production, just something that people can consume within 5 minutes.

Example: How to Perfect Your Squat

This is an example of a professionally-produced how-to video, with some extra camera angles that help the expert instruct her audience.

Case Studies

Go from being “another company that says they can solve my problem” in your prospect’s mind to a verified, credible expert they should listen to.

Case studies are a beautiful blend of “How-To” info and the all-powerful customer testimonial. Stay focused on the result that was achieved, and people will opt in to find out how they can create the same result.

Example: DeVry Case Study

This video is beautifully put together, and clearly communicates how the business (Retrofit) significantly improves the lives of the customer’s (DeVry) employees and makes the business more profitable.

Video Marketing Funnel: Step 1If you’ve ever tried advertising on Facebook or Google, you know how hard it can be.

And confusing. And expensive.

Most of the time, your ad will be seen by a total stranger.

If they detect even a HINT of advertising … POOF! They’re gone.

Let me make this clear:

You absolutely can market to total strangers on social media.

It just takes a different approach.

Keep in mind:

They don’t know you, and don’t care about you.

They only care about understanding their problem(s).

They hate advertising.

Today’s audiences are fickle and impatient, but you can engage them by showing them content that:

Gives them value in a short period of time

Focuses 100% on them and solving their problem

Doesn’t try to sell anything!

Here are 4 kinds of videos that people love to watch and share with their friends on social media.

Compact, powerful and an easy favorite on social media.

People love checklists because they deliver a lot of information in a short period of time, about any conceivable subject in the world. “Top 10” videos frequently get hundreds of millions of views on YouTube.

This is the easiest kind of social-media-friendly video to start with.

What kind of questions do your prospects tend to ask during their first consultation with you? Generate goodwill by giving people the exact information they want (before they even have to ask you for it).

In these troubled economic times, companies everywhere are looking to reduce costs any way they can — and marketing budgets are usually the first to go. At the same time, companies desperately need to increase their revenues, making marketing more important than ever. What are the absolute minimum essentials that every company (in a boom or a bust) needs to market itself?

"I have a list of customers who’ve bought from me in the past. I want to use a newsletter to stay top-of-mind and encourage them to buy from me repeatedly, without damaging trust or losing them as a customer. Is this even possible?!"

In 2010, I was looking for ways to build a more successful web business. I saw a horde of highly-educated people in India, China, Pakistan, etc. that were making websites at ridiculously-low prices. I concluded that the only way I could make a ton of money was to play the game at that level. So, I created a little package that I just KNEW would make me rich! What I didn’t know is that it would compromise everything I stood for.